Married catholic priests

[otjm]

Hey - you don’t like the idea. As far as the Church is concerned, neither your idea nor mine amount to a hill of beans. It is up to the bishops of the world and to, ultimately, the Pope as to whether or not this ever occurs. However, other than a whole lot of talk (which I suspect started well before Vatican 2 and continued on after it) nothing has been openly proposed seriously until the Brazilian bishops spoke up. Time will tell. There is a shortage in Brazil, there is a growing shortage in the US. I don’t know about other countries in Central or South America; but there are areas of the world which have an abundance of vocations, Africa being one of them (and that is not necessarily all of Africa), as well as some other countries.

However, with the request from Brazil, it likely has become more possible than, say 40 years ago. Again, how possible only time will tell. The Roman rite had married priests up to the tenth century, so it is not like this is some totally off the wall issue.

You don’t like the idea, and I have no problem with that. I do have a problem with what you list as problems; most of them are not, and the rest are by no means prohibitive. Any number of people had a problem with the deaconate; some still do. And it is working fine and growing. As of 2017, there were 18,287 deacons, and 2,670 candidates. That is up from 878 in 1975.

 

[otjm]

Nor do I propose that it is magical. I do, however, propose that it is long overdue. The Church certainly would not be damaged by additional clergy; however, unlike others, I see no rush to ordination. Wifey ain’t on board, ain’t nobody on board. and she will have a whole lot more (name removed by moderator)ut on the issue than many seem to think.

 

[tweedlealice]

Salutations
I would imagine, married individuals would have apts. The logistics is one reason the church is dragging feet. They’d have rectories snd convents for celibates. Maybe build condos for married. Maybe a married priest might have a second job to support family. Our married priests were Episcopal priest that changed to Catholic w homosexual priests in Episcopalian church.
In Christ’s Love
Tweedlealice

 

[babochka]

1. Large Protestant parishes pay their pastors a good salary. Large Episcopalian parishes can pay their pastor a six figure salary. Catholic priests & bishops typically don’t make anywhere near that. Is everyone ready to start donating 3 or 4 times more than they currently are donating to support their married priest(s)? Married men need to support their families, a married Catholic priest does not make enough money to support a family.

Currently, in the local Latin diocese, a parochial vicar receives a salary of $31,000. This figure does not include housing or medical. (The policy of the local diocese also provides for three meals a day, paid cell phone, car insurance, and approximately $300 a month in Mass offerings - not a bad package, really.) If a priest were to receive a salary of $85,000 a year (which is reasonable for this area and about $20,000 a year more than my husband makes, with similar educational requirements), that would require an additional salary of 54,000. Add to that another generous 10,000 to cover the cost of covering his family on health insurance, additional retirement costs (matching funds for a larger salary) and maybe an allowance for periodic moves, a parish would need to come up with an additional 64,000 per year. 150 families could cover that with donations of only $35/month. For 100 families, it would take fewer than $55/month. 300 families could do it for less than $18/month. If that is 3-4 times what the average Catholic family is already giving, then families need to step up and do a better job fulfilling the 5th precept of the Church.

 

[Spyridon]

The Vatican should allow priests to marry and Nuns to marry as well.

Will never happen, could never happen, has never happen.

The Vatican could allow already-married Deacons or laity to become priests, but once ordained a priest they cannot then get married.

And nuns? Nuns are already married to Jesus.

 

[1ke]

I attend a church that has a married priest.A lot of peolpe like him.

That’s nice. Many Catholics don’t know that married men can become priests in the Eastern Rites of the Catholic Church and also that some married men who enter the Church can be ordained-- such as those coming from Anglican and Lutheran clergy roles.

.Then there’s some that think a married priest is wrong

We must educate them that married men becoming priests is a long-held tradition in the Church. It is not currently the discipline in the Latin Church, and may never be. The married men who became priests in the Latin Church are certainly the exception as part of ecumenical outreach to bring separated brethren back into union with Rome. The tradition in the East goes back to the beginning.

It is important to educate fellow Catholics that married men becoming priests or not is a discipline of the Church, not a doctrine.

.I think it alright for a priest to be married

We need to be clear that married men can become priests and be ordained, but once ordained priests cannot marry.

.It might stop the priest shortage

The evidence of what is happening in protestant denominations does not bear this out. Those denominations have married clergy and they too have a shortage of those in ministry.

 

[phil19034]

phil19034:

1. Large Protestant parishes pay their pastors a good salary. Large Episcopalian parishes can pay their pastor a six figure salary. Catholic priests & bishops typically don’t make anywhere near that. Is everyone ready to start donating 3 or 4 times more than they currently are donating to support their married priest(s)? Married men need to support their families, a married Catholic priest does not make enough money to support a family.

Currently, in the local Latin diocese, a parochial vicar receives a salary of $31,000. This figure does not include housing or medical. (The policy of the local diocese also provides for three meals a day, paid cell phone, car insurance, and approximately $300 a month in Mass offerings - not a bad package, really.) If a priest were to receive a salary of $85,000 a year (which is reasonable for this area and about $20,000 a year more than my husband makes, with similar educational requirements), that would require an additional salary of 54,000. Add to that another generous 15,000 to cover the cost of covering his family on health insurance, additional retirement costs (matching funds for a larger salary) and maybe an allowance for periodic moves, a parish would need to come up with an additional 64,000 per year. 150 families could cover that with donations of only $35/month. For 100 families, it would take fewer than $55/month. 300 families could do it for less than $18/month. If that is 3-4 times what the average Catholic family is already giving, then families need to step up and do a better job fulfilling the 5th precept of the Church.

Yes, my math was perhaps off.

However, it’s still more money that the parishes would be on the hook for. For parishes that are already financially struggling, this could be a death blow to more parishes.

 

[Kei]

They have families and make it work

Do they, though? Do they really?

Historically we have had married priests, but they tended to have no more sexual relations though married.

 

[Augustinian]

Married priests present their own problems, mainly what do the wives do? or the children?

They have to be committed to the program as well.

How does it work out if the priest is married to Baptist woman? How about a catholic woman that works as a bartender? or a standup comedian? Or other things that could be questionable at best? What if they get separated?

How about if the kids are screwups?

You can say that other churches deal with this, and you’d be right. But it poses a new set of problems for the Catholic Church that you don’t have with single, unattached men serving as priests.

 

[commenter]

• My suspicion is that there are very few, qualified married men out there, interested in priesthood, who are not already deacons. Yes, I know it is not the same exact calling, but it is pretty close.
• I know deacons go through 5 years of preparation, this is non residential formation, part time, while they work secular job full time, and family responsibilities. Preparing a married man for priesthood, with seminary commuting, would take a deacon offline for a few years. We also have a shortage of deacons. If he is not a deacon, he likely is a very active layman needed in his parish or other Catholic ministries, who would be offline for a few years.
• Family problems are much worse now than in the 1960s. My Catholic relatives, well over 50, are dealing with young adult childrens issues unimagined by them a few years before, when they would have been considered “Viri probati”. Couples are dealing with strains they would not have predicted, nor would a screening committee at the seminary a few years earlier.
• The program might net a diocese a few extra priests each year, but they would be serving only a few years. It would have a benefit, not a lot.

 

[Gwendolen]

Some of these seem to be based on money – why is it that Protestant and Episcopal congregations can pay their clergy enough to support their family but Catholic parishes cannot?

As someone formerly Episcopal I can relay some of what the smaller churches do – some priests have other secular jobs, because a congregation cannot support it the priest, which is sometimes the case with mission churches. Also, the spouse generally brings in some income. Married non-Catholic clergy are all used to not going away for Easter and Christmas. This is somewhat easier in parishes where there is a rector and an associate rector.

As an aside, the Episcopal church is regularly loosing members due to many factors. Not being able to sustain priests means less jobs for priests, which is already an issue.

 

[phil19034]

Some of these seem to be based on money – why is it that Protestant and Episcopal congregations can pay their clergy enough to support their family but Catholic parishes cannot?

Protestant churches have grown up with this. Everything it’s been a built in cost for decades.

It’s not so much that Protestants can and Catholics cannot… But that Catholic Parishes are not currently paying it. It would be a new, large annual expense that Catholic parishes currently do not pay, and would have to start paying. And most Catholic parishes run pretty lean, spending almost all of the money they take in. So to pay these higher salaries, they would either have to cut spending or receive more donations.

And I do agree that a healthy parish, most likely could afford it. But there are many parishes, in poor areas that are broke. In crease in priest pay would shutter a number of poor parishes, which would go against everything the Church stands for.

Also, the priesthood is a vocation, like marriage. Allowing married priests (to me) starts to change it to an occupation. No to mention, Pope Francis wants priests to be focused on their flock and not about “careerism” - which is one of the reason he stopped naming priests to be Monsignors. He didn’t want priests focusing on doing thing to become a Monsignor.

Well, career climbing is important when you have a family.

I know some disagree with me, but I strongly fear that if we open to priestly ordination to married lay men, it will have a negative impact. I think, it would be better (if we truly have a shortage) to allow SELECT married deacons to become part time priests instead - who are focused on Masses and Confessions only.

God Bless

 

[dochawk]

\begin{sarcasm}
It’s so good for us that you and your website no better than the last couple of popes, St. Timothy, and two thousands years of church traction and teaching . . .
\end{sarcasm}

Whether or not it is good for the RCC is a valid question, and it can be reasonably argued that it is a bad idea.

Asserting that a priest cannot have a mortal bride is at least close to the heresy line, if not over it.

hawk

 

[dochawk]

A few thoughts:

1. priests cannot have side secular jobs in the RCC under canon law.
2. conversely, the norm for Russian Orthodox churches in the US is that the priest does have a day job to support himself and his family.
3. I know with certainty that there would be at least one more RC priest in the US if married men were ordained (although I assume I still would have turned East along the way; that wasn’t the reason I changed).
4. With the roles priest’s wives typically play in EC and EO parishes, RC churches would save on other staff (but probably not by as much as the costs).
5. Seminaries are fairly recent in the scheme of things–post-schism. If memory serves, they were regularized at Trent. (and spread from then/there to the east, including the Orthodox). For the majority of Church history, though, this wasn’t how priests were trained.
6. I teased my wife when i turned east that now i could become a priest (not correct at the time, due to being baptized RC, but now . . .). She, having been raised protestant, was all for it, and I had to explain why it couldn’t be . . .

hawk

 

[Miguel25]

Are you kidding 6 figure salary? Is that for real?

 

[godisgood77]

Most of the 23ish rites in the Catholic Church allow married priests. I see no reason that the Latin Church shouldn’t open the priesthood up to married men who are called to it. That change would not outlaw celibate priests… if one is called to celibacy, so be it, but if not that shouldn’t be a disqualifier. Hopefully next year’s Amazonian Synod will clear the way…

 

[edwest211]

Not going to happen.

 

[edwest211]

Family problems are much worse than the 1960s because it was planned that way. It was and is heavily promoted. Commitment? What’s that?

 

[Augustinian]

Married priests like to send their kids to Catholic School, which would require more resources from the parish to send the kids to Catholic school… Plus, Married Catholic priests typically have 5+ kids.

There is an insufficient number of married Catholic priests to guess how many children their wives might give birth to, if it became widespread practice.

If a lot of these guys are older, their wives are likely to be older and near the end of their child bearing years if not past menopause.

 

[BlackFriar]

1. Latin Church (aka Roman Catholic) Parishes are typically much larger than Eastern Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Parishes.

Yet in countries where there is a priest shortage nobody has a problem with combining 5 parishes and putting 3 celibate priests at a central Presbytery there to service them.

1. Married priests are historically not supposed to have sex on a day they celebrate mass. For Eastern Churches, this really isn’t an issue because most Eastern parishes don’t have daily mass. But Roman Catholic Churches have had daily mass for centuries.

Married sex is not sinful (unlike in Augustine’s time), nor does the Catholic Church have any commitment to ancient ritual purity laws nice icing on the cake though it is for some.

1. Because Roman Catholic parishes tend to be larger than Eastern parishes, Roman parishes tend to have multiple priests per parish. If priests get married, and a parish has 2 or more priests, where do the married priests live with their families?

Give them a single parish.

1. Large Protestant parishes pay their pastors a good salary. Large Episcopalian parishes can pay their pastor a six figure salary. Catholic priests & bishops typically don’t make anywhere near that. Is everyone ready to start donating 3 or 4 times more than they currently are donating to support their married priest(s)?

Large amalgamation of parishes or more masses on Sunday will help solve that. I find that people who feel cared for don’t mind paying extra. Trust in God to provide for his labourers has been undermined by the present system so it would be good to have some taking Providence more seriously in that area. Fat Dioceses may need to stop appropriating ownership and control of local parish properties and their rents. Capital returns (rent etc) on local property is a major source of income for the Anglican Church to help pay reasonable stipends…

Married men need to support their families, a married Catholic priest does not make enough money to support a family.

See Anglicans and other Churches as per above.

1. Married priests like to send their kids to Catholic School, which would require more resources from the parish to send the kids to Catholic school… Plus, Married Catholic priests typically have 5+ kids.

Please. We have so few in 1st World countries I find it difficult to take your stats seriously. If parishioners have to be responsible and take NFP seriously so should their pastors.

Why go on. Where there is a will there is a way.
When there is not the will then any trivial reason will gainsay.